Peter Charles Lewis (born July 15, 1945) is one of the founding members of the band
Moby Grape. Three of his better known songs with Moby Grape are "Fall on You" and "Sitting by the Window" from the
self-titled first Moby Grape album and "If You Can't Learn from My Mistakes" from Moby Grape '69.[1]
Background
Peter is the younger of the two sons of actress
Loretta Young (1913–2000)[2] and writer-producer Tom Lewis (d. 1988),[3] and accordingly spent much of his childhood in Hollywood. His older brother
Christopher Lewis (1944–2021) was a writer and producer of films primarily for television. The Lewis brothers are nephews of Young's sisters, actresses
Polly Ann Young and
Sally Blane. They are also half-brothers of
Judy Lewis (d. 2011), daughter of Loretta Young and
Clark Gable. Musician
David Lindley is their cousin.[4]
As a youth, Lewis attended military school; after a stint in the Air Force, he became a commercial pilot, initially working for Shell Oil.[5] As for his musical career, Lewis cites
Tim Hardin and
Fred Neil as important influences, and credits
Linda McCartney (née Eastman) with introducing him to their music.[6]
Moby Grape: Lewis’ sensitivity to Mosley’s and Spence’s challenges
Beyond his work as a musician, Lewis has been noted for his efforts in assisting fellow Moby Grape bandmates
Bob Mosley and
Skip Spence (d. 1999) in battling the challenges of
schizophrenia.[7] Lewis has a personal sensitivity to psychiatric challenges. At age 11, while his parents were embroiled in an acrimonious divorce and custody dispute, he suffered a nervous breakdown in New York City and was involuntarily hospitalized for a period.[8] As of 1969, he recalls, "I was under the care of a psychiatrist, taking all this
Librium so I could stay with the band."[9]
Mosley credits Lewis with helping him end approximately five years of homelessness in the 1990s. Mosley describes the circumstances as follows: "In 1996, Peter Lewis picked me up along the side of a San Diego freeway where I was living, to tell me a ruling by San Francisco Judge Garcia gave Moby Grape their name back. I was ready to go to work again."[10]
With respect to Spence, Lewis was skeptical about him being labeled a schizophrenic because recognized treatments were not resulting in any noticeable improvements. As a result, Lewis sought and participated in alternative healing therapies with Spence involving metaphysics. "Through my dad, who'd become a born-again Christian, I'd met these monks in Lucia above
Big Sur, who were really serious about rational metaphysics. Their faith beyond reason overwhelms you every time.[11] Since the doctors couldn't help Skippy - they kept objectifying his problem: 'He's a paranoid schizophrenic' and were never going to heal him. All they were interested in was keeping him out of McDonald's with a machine gun, so it (the monastery) was the only place I could think of to take him."[9]
Recent career
In recent years, in addition to performing occasionally with Moby Grape, Lewis was a guitarist with the reformed
Electric Prunes (2000–2003), contributing to their Artifact album.[12][13] He has also developed a career as a solo artist. He has released three albums on the Taxim label: Peter Lewis,Peter Lewis with David West Live in
Bremen and Peter Lewis with David West Live at the
Lobero Theatre.[14] Peter Lewis occasionally performs as a duo with David West, his collaborator on Live in Bremen and Live at the Lobero Theatre.[15]
In 2010, Lewis appeared with
Stu Cook at the
SXSW festival, performing with The Explosives.[16][17][18]
As of 2011, Lewis has been writing songs and performing with poet
M.L. Liebler.[19]
^David Lindley's father Jack Lindley was a sibling (one brother, two sisters) of Peter Lewis' mother Loretta Young. See
Interview with Peter LewisArchived 2008-09-06 at the
Wayback Machine by Jud Cost, 1995; www.sundazed.com.
^"Interview with Peter Lewis". Archived from the original on March 1, 2002. Retrieved 2013-08-18.{{
cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (
link), October, 2001.
^Images of Peter Lewis, Bob Mosley and Skip Spence playing music together in later years are accessible
here. (Below the gallery)
^Bob Mosley commentary in relation to the circumstances ultimately leading to his stabilization and the recording of his album
True Blue Oddly though, bankrupt musicians rarely try to find other jobs.
Archived 2009-01-06 at the
Wayback Machine (2005).
^Lewis' connection to The Electric Prunes commenced in the 1960s, through the late guitarist Ron Morgan (1945-1989). Morgan, originally from
Colby, Kansas, had relocated to Los Angeles and played with Lewis in one of Lewis' early bands, Peter and The Wolves. Morgan then went on to join
The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, as well as an early version of
Three Dog Night and, thereafter, a reformed version of The Electric Prunes, playing on the Just Good Old Rock and Roll album. See
Interview with Bob MorganArchived 2011-02-08 at the
Wayback Machine (brother of Ron Morgan), 1999; www.shadwell.tripod.com.
^Taxim is a German label which distributes its albums globally. Peter Lewis is quite popular in Germany. Bob Mosley also records for the same label. The label website is
hereArchived 2008-09-15 at the
Wayback Machine.
^Jerry Miller,
Don Stevenson and
Omar Spence, son of Skip Spence, also appeared at a different venue, but on the same day, at SXSW, performing as "New Wine". For reasons not publicly known, Lewis did not join his former bandmates in performance.